Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs
Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs is the third installment in the Ice Age series. It was produced by Blue Sky Studios and released by 20th Century Fox. It was released in July 1, 2009 with a sneak preview shown nationwide at selected theaters on Father's Day in the USA. It is the first Ice Age movie to be released in digital 3D and is by far the most popular so far. Synopsis After the events of Ice Age: The Meltdown, life begins to change for Manny and his friends: Scrat is still on the hunt to hold onto his beloved acorn, while finding a possible romance in a female saber-toothed squirrel named Scratte. Manny and his new wife Ellie are expecting a baby, which leaves Manny anxious to ensure that everything is perfect for when his baby arrives. Diego is fed up with being treated like a house-cat and ponders the notion that he is becoming too laid-back. He eventually leaves the herd. Sid begins to wish for a family of his own, and so steals some dinosaur eggs which leads to Sid ending up in an underground world where dinosaurs roam free, and where his herd must rescue him, while dodging dinosaurs and facing danger left and right, and meeting up with a weasel known as Buck who hunts dinosaurs intently and has a mammal chauvinism. Plot Ellie and Manny are expecting their first child, and Manny is obsessed with making life perfect and safe for the family. He is shown bringing a shell full of water to Ellie believing that she is giving birth, although this is just a false alarm. At the same time, Diego finds himself unable to catch an antelope he has been stalking. The antelope starts to taunt him. Believing that he is losing his predatory nature as a tiger, he decides to leave the herd after a talk with Manny. Sid grows jealous of Manny and Ellie and “adopts” three apparently abandoned eggs that he finds in an icy underground cavern. Manny tells him to put them back, but Sid instead looks after the eggs, which hatch into baby Tyrannosaurus the next morning. Although Sid tries his best to raise the three dinosaurs, their rambunctious behavior scares away all the other animals’ young and ruins a playground Manny built for Ellie’s baby. The mother dinosaur soon returns and carries both Sid and her youth underground, with Diego in pursuit. Manny, Ellie, Crash, and Eddie follow as well and discover that the icy cavern leads to a vast jungle populated by dinosaurs thought to be extinct. Here, an Ankylosaurus threatens the herd despite Diego’s efforts to fend it off; they are saved from a further crowd of angry reptiles (including Kentrosaurus, Brachiosaurus, Maiasaura, and Pachycephalosaurus) by a one-eyed, slightly crazed weasel named Buckminster, or Buck. Buck has been living in this jungle for some time and chasing Rudy (a giant white Baryonyx that is this world’s biggest dinosaur), intending to avenge the eye he lost to it. He agrees to lead the herd through the jungle’s perils to Lava Falls, where “Momma” has taken Sid and her babies. Soon Manny and Diego are captured by a carnivorous plant, but thanks to Buck, they are freed. In the meantime, Sid and the mother try to outdo each other in feeding the offspring; he loses this contest, but is soon welcomed into the family regardless. That night, while the herd was resting Manny had a bad dream of Ellie all alone in a jungle and being killed by Rudy. After he wakes up, Ellie was still sleeping; however, she woke up, too, and Manny explains to her about his nightmare. Because Ellie was in the nightmare, she explains the most dangerous place in the world is bigger than her and Manny. Buck hears that if Manny was nicer to Sid, they wouldn't be searching for him. Buck says that Manny risked his own life and his unborn baby. That makes Manny a friend and a hero. The next day, however, Rudy attacks the (dinosaur) family and Sid is knocked onto a loose rock slab that is floating on a river of lava and about to plummet over the falls. As the herd moves toward Lava Falls, Ellie goes into labor and a Guanlong pack strikes, causing a rock slide that separates her from Manny and Diego. Manny doubles back to protect her and Diego fends off further attacks, while Buck takes Crash and Eddie ahead to rescue Sid. Just as the sloth goes over the falls, the trio swoops in on a commandeered Pteranodon and saves his life (after being chased by some Quetzalcoatlus). Manny reaches Ellie just as their baby is born, a girl they decide to name Peaches (the codeword they had chosen for Ellie to use if she went into labor during the trip). Sid is saddened at the fact that he never had a chance to say goodbye to "his" children as he is reunited with the herd. Before they can exit the jungle, Rudy attacks at full force; Buck helps the others ensnare him briefly, but he escapes and resumes his onslaught. The herd is saved by the timely arrival of Momma, who charges at Rudy and knocks him off a cliff. As she and her children wish Sid well, Buck – now without a purpose in life since Rudy is gone – decides to join the herd and live on the surface. However, a distant roar tells him that Rudy is still alive; he changes his mind and sends the herd home, he destroys the path to the underground jungle at the same time so that no one can go down there. Manny and Ellie welcome Peaches into their frozen world and admit that Sid did a good job looking after Momma's children. Diego decides to remain with the herd, while Buck stays where he wants to be: underground, matching wits with Rudy. Scrat and Scratte As in the previous Ice Age films, Scrat does everything he can to retrieve his precious acorn. His efforts are complicated by the presence of Scratte, a female of his species, with whom he is instantly smitten. Scratte outsmarts him a number of times, once by demonstrating her ability to glide like a flying squirrel, but the two eventually fall in love after Scrat saves her from falling to her death in the lava river. He even chooses to focus his attention on her instead of the acorn until the end of the film, when he tires of her finicky nature and reverts to his old ways. The ensuing fight between the couple leads to a volcanic explosion that hurls Scrat and the acorn back to the surface, leaving Scratte trapped underground. As Scrat is about to enjoy his acorn, though, a stray piece of ice falls on him and knocks it back into Scratte’s hands. He screams in frustration, having lost both his love and his acorn. Characters Main Characters Dinosaurs Development Rumors about a third Ice Age film started when Ice Age: The Meltdown's DVD said in the director commentaries that there was probably going to be made a third movie called "Ice Age: A New Beginning". It wasn't until January 30, 2007 when Fox president Hutch Parker, based on the box office success of Ice Age: The Meltdown, announced and approved a third film. The movie is considered to be the biggest blockbuster this summer, with only Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen and Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince rivaling it. Blue Sky decided to do "more of a what-if adventure" in the third Ice Age installment, "like finding the giant ape in King Kong or a Shangri-la in the middle of snow," and added the dinosaurs to the story. Character designer Peter de Sève welcomed the new plot addition, since he could not think of any other giant mammal to put into the story. The "lost world" approach led to colorful dinosaurs, because "the dinosaurs didn't have to be just brown, and you can take liberties because no one knows what color they were", according to de Sève. Rudy's design was inspired by the Baryonyx because of his crocodile-like look, which de Sève considered even more menacing than the T. rex.'Ice Age' warms up to dinosaurs in third installment - USA Today The film's original trailer debuted with the film Horton Hears a Who! on March 14, 2008, then online on April 7, 2008. There are three others that have been released, with the third and fourth (which shows Buck) being the most closely resembling each other. Queen Latifah recorded a cover of the song "Walk the Dinosaur". Adult Jokes Unlike previous Ice Age films, Dawn of the Dinosaurs had an intense amount of adult jokes and violence situations. This is a list of some/all of these kind of events. *When the Baby Dinos are born and Sid needs to find food for them, he tries to obtain milk from a sleeping Ox, whoever, the Ox wakes up and chases Sid, who yells "I thought you were a female!". (pictured right) *At one part when Manny and Diego are trapped inside an enormous carnivore plant, Diego says he feels "tingly", to which Manny responds "Don't say that when you're pressed up against me." *While riding a pterosaur Buck grabs some berries. It reveals that Scrat and Scratte were likely getting ready for copulation behind it. They break the 4th wall and try to cover themselves from the audience. *This movie likely has the highest body count of the movies, with a group of pterasaurs diving into lava, and Manny crushing Guanlongs. *After Sid sees Peaches, he exclaims "It's a boy!" before being told by Diego that "that" was a tail. Reception | rev2 =Empire | rev2Score = | rev3 =Entertainment Weekly | rev3Score =B- | rev4 =New York Post | rev4Score = | rev5 =The Onion (A.V. Club) | rev5Score =C+ | rev6 =Philadelphia Inquirer | rev6Score = | rev7 =Variety | rev7Score =Favorable | rev8 = | rev8Score = }} Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs received mediocre to mixed reviews from critics. As of August 12, 2009, Rotten Tomatoes reported that 45% of critics gave positive reviews marking it as a "rotten" rating, out of 146 reviews, with an average rating of 5.4/10http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/1194515-ice_age_dawn_of_the_dinosaurs and a 33% from top critics. It has a score of 50 on Metacritic citing "Mixed to average" reviews. http://www.metacritic.com/film/titles/iceage3 However, Roger Ebert ultimately gave the film a three and a half star out of four review claiming that: "Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs is the best of the three films about our friends in the inter-species herd of plucky prehistoric heroes. And it involves some of the best use of 3-D I've seen in an animated feature."http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20090629/REVIEWS/906299995 Lou Lumenik of the New York Post awarded the film 3 out of 4 stars stating that the film is "much more of an emphasis on action in this nicely crafted, fast-paced sequel."http://www.nypost.com/seven/07012009/entertainment/movies/nice_age__176999.htm Keith Phipps of the A.V. Club graded the film a C+ claiming the sequel "throws its commitment to the era away with movie number three, a ploy sure to anger Ice Age purists everywhere."http://www.avclub.com/articles/ice-age-dawn-of-the-dinosaurs,29880/ While many praised the animation, some critics panned the flatness of the story and indifferent voice work. Award Nominations The film's score by John Powell and the voice acting of Sid by John Leguizamo have been considered for the Annie Awardshttp://www.annieawards.org/consideration.html. Deleted Scenes thumb|300px|right|Deleted Scene where Sid, Crash, Eddie and Manny try and get a crystal from a spider cave. Box office The movie has made $13,791,157 on an opening day at the box office. It reached approximately $42,500,000 on its opening weekend at #1, according to studio estimates, tying last week's champion Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen. The actual grosses declared Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen the victor between the two. Ice Age 3 grossed $67,506,000 after 5 days, $148,000,000 internationally for a total of $215,506,000 for the first week. The film closed on November 22, 2009 with a total of $883,718,521 USD worldwide. It is the 2nd highest grossing computer animated film of all time (behind Shrek 2) and the highest grossing Ice Age film. It is currently the highest grossing 20th Century Fox film of the year. Also, it is the highest grossing international computer animated film in history, with $678 million, surpassing Finding Nemo's $524 million. Soundtrack The musical scores were done by John Powell who did the scores for the previous movie. Queen Latifah's cover of Walk the Dinosaur was used to promote the movie though it doesn't appear in the soundtrack. Video game A video game was released on June 30, 2009. Blu-ray Disc & DVD release The film was released on DVD and Blu-ray Disc on October 27, 2009 in the US. Release on other countries varied and ended on Dec 4, 2009. Unlike previous Ice Age films, the DVD was released as 20th Century Fox's Halloween treat and didn't feature a new Scrat animated short. The movie was rated PG for some mild rude humor and peril, as seen on the back of the DVD and Blu-Ray Disc of the movie. Trivia Mistakes *The second film had Manny mention that the dinosaurs went extinct, and in this one Ellie repeats that, meaning that somehow the animals knew about the existence of dinosaurs on earth, even though that was millions of years before the films take place, and animals don't have paleontology tools. Mammals from the time of the dinosaurs could have probably talked, and so told their children, who told their children, and so on over the millions of years, although things would have been lost in translation. *Throughout the movie there is sunlight in the Dinosaur Valley (which is possible since the ice above them is transparent), and when Buck tells the story of when he fought Rudy there is rain and lightning. The light could have been the sunlight from the surface magnified by the ice, and the rain could have been melting ice. Also, Buck seems to to have gone insane, and put the lightning in for dramatic effect. It is also possible that the rain forest that the dinosaurs live in could have created its own atmosphere. *Sid finds the Tyrannosaurus Rex's eggs in an Ice Cave. No egg could survive in such a cold environment without a constant source body heat from the parent. Also, there is a considerable distance between the cavern and the Dinosaur World entrance, which leaves it unclear why Momma left the eggs so far. It's possible that another dinosaur stole the eggs to eat them, but left them there, but this isn't shown. She could have also laid them there to keep them safe from ''[[Rudy|''Rudy]] *At the end of the movie, it shows that Scrat permanently lost his acorn when it fell below the ice into the Dinosaur Valley, while at the epilogue it shows Scrat had still been chasing it although he could have found another one. It could have also have been another male of Scrat's species as they all seem mad about acorns. *When everyone except Buck is asleep, Ellie is shown next to Manny, even holding trunks with him by the looks of it. However, when Manny wakes from his nightmare, Ellie is a good distance away from him, around twenty feet. *Based on the snout shape of Baryonyx, scientists claim that it would rather eat fish than mammals. *When Sid tossed an Archaeopteryx off a cliff and expected it to fly, the Archaeopteryx plummeted to the ground instead until it got eaten by a pteranodon. It seems odd that the Archaeopteryx seemed unable to fly since it is a bird that has wings that are built for flying. Miscellaneous *The first Blue Sky Studios movie that wasn't released in March. *The only Ice Age movie that doesn't end with Manny giving Sid a ride on his back, or having the herd walk into the sunset. *Dawn of the Dinosaurs is possibly set at least two years after the events of the second film, this is based on the fact that Ellie's pregnancy lasted around a normal elephant's, and that she is close to giving birth at the start of the movie. *''Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs'' was the last Blue Sky Studios movie to use the 1994 20th Century Fox logo (the studio's next film, Rio, will use the new 20th Century Fox logo). The 20th Century Fox logo featured in the theatrical version may be retained in the TV release of the film. *It took only 26 days approximately to fetch $670 million and overcome its predecessor The Meltdown, which made $651 million on the 147 days it lasted on theaters. *Although Fast Tony, Carl, Frank and the mini-sloths don't appear in this film they do appear in the video game. *Sid is the only sloth featured in this film. *LOGO GIMMICK: The 20th Century Fox logo is surrounded by snow-covered pine trees, and the searchlights are miniature smoldering volcanoes. Unfortunately, this variant was plastered with the regular 20th Century Fox logo in the DVD/Blu-ray release. References *The scene where Momma first comes up from underground searching for the Baby Dinos is a reference from Jurassic Park: Manny tells everybody not to move a muscle before one of the other animals bursts into screams, alerting the dinosaur of their presence. *The scene where the Quetzalcoatls chase Roger, Buck, Crash and Eddie is a parody of Star Wars, a chase of spaceships, which copies many Star Wars films *When Manny, Diego, Crash, Eddie, and Buck are in the Chasm of Death, Crash and Eddie take advantage of their squeaky voices and sing part of "Christmas Don't Be Late" by the Chipmunks. However, the term Christmas didn't exist in the Ice Age period until naming it after Jesus Christ who was born in 4 BC. *Alvin and the Chipmunks movie is also owned by Fox. The second trailer to "The Squeakquel" was shown with this film, and it was similar to the second trailer of this movie (Scrat/The Chipmunks meeting their female counterparts). *The relationship between Sid and Momma is possibly a parody of the Shrek films where Donkey and Dragon are in a relationship. Sequel A new Ice Age film has been recently announced and is in pre-production. http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/11/business/media/11bluesky.html Contracts with the actors are being made currently. See also *Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs/Quotes *Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs/Gallery *Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs/Home media References External links *Official UK website *Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs at the Internet Movie Database *Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs at Rotten Tomatoes *Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs at Allmovie Category:Movies Category:Featured